Spaceballs (1987)
Mar 10, 2004Star Wars Parody
Mel Brooks parodies the Star Wars films. As with most Brooks films, the humour is broad and scattershot but occasionally amusing
Bill Pullman
The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988)
Mar 10, 2004Voodoo/"True Story"
One of Wes Craven's best films. Loosely based on true-life book by botanist Wade Davis who set out to find the drug that creates zombies, Craven delves into Haitian voodoo in a striking blend of dream and horror
Brain Dead (1990)
Sep 8, 2000Paranoia and Hallucinations
One of the better 80s attempts to copy A Nightmare on Elm Street from an old Charles Beaumont script in which Bill Pullman is a neurologist who becomes involved in an increasingly wilder series of reality bendings
Casper (1995)
May 1, 2001Friendly Ghost
Film adaptation of the popular Casper the Friendly Ghost comic book ends up being like its title character - cute but insubstantial. Mostly this feels driven by slapstick scenes.
Independence Day (1996)
Apr 12, 2003Alien Invasion
The film that made Roland Emmerich's name as a specialist in mass destruction spectacle. At heart, this rehashes a 1950s alien invasion film on a big-budget and adds blatantly sentimentalised American flag-waving
Lost Highway (1997)
Nov 5, 1999Identity Exchange/Surrealism
A bafflingly surreal yet compulsive David Lynch film in which Bill Pullman and wife receives mysterious threatening videotapes and Bill then inexplicably turns into Balthazar Getty
Lake Placid (1999)
Jul 21, 1999Giant Killer Crocodile
David E. Kelley, better known as a high-profile tv producer, turns his hand to writing a killer crocodile film, although the result never ends up satisfying either as a monster movie or the jokey tone Kelley wants to take
Titan A.E. (2000)
Jun 18, 2000Animation/Space Opera
Very nicely made space opera from animator Don Bluth, operating from a Joss Whedon script, that unfortunately proved a big box-office flop
Ignition (2001)
Nov 21, 2014Action Thriller
An action film set against the backdrop of a new Moon mission where Bill Pullman plays a US marshal assigned to protect judge Lena Olin whose life is under threat
The Grudge (2004)
Dec 12, 2004Haunting/Japanese Horror Remake
The English-language remake of Ju-on: The Grudge, this has the good sense to retain the original's director Takashi Shimizu. The script makes more sense and Shimizu replicates the same eerie scares
Scary Movie 4 (2006)
Jun 21, 2006Genre Spoof
Fourth of the Scary Movie films and the usual crude inanity, although under David Zucker the movie parodies have expanded well beyond what can be labelled scary movies any longer
The Killer Inside Me (2010)
Nov 17, 2010Psycho Deputy
Disappointing adaptation of a classic noir novel where neither Michael Winterbottom nor a blank Casey Affleck do much to get inside the noirish mood or the troubled central character of a psychopathic sheriff's deputy
Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)
Jul 2, 2016Alien Invasion
Roland Emmerich returns with more of the same. The problem is how to top the first film and here everything is so big and with so much happening that it cannot be taken in and slips into tedium